How VMware to configure a network interface in Linux

This is funny but true. System developer updated the system including libc and other critical files. After upgrading system, they just rebooted the system and everything worked fine except VMWARE networking. Since they skipped the Linux kernel upgrade, VMWARE workstation was coming up but vmnet1 was not starting for some weird reason.

First, I restarted vmware service:

# /etc/init.d/vmware restart


Output:

Stopping VMware services:
Virtual machine monitor done
Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0 done
DHCP server on /dev/vmnet1 done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 done
Virtual ethernet done
Starting VMware services:
Virtual machine monitor done
Virtual ethernet done
Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0 done
Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background) done

I thought vmnet1 is up and running (at least above output indicates this) but when I run ifconfig command:
# /sbin/ifconfig -a

There was no vmnet1 interface at all. This is one of production system and now things are complicated. Oh, boy I hate stupid developer(s) they will do anything to setup and run their development environment.

Anyways one of our senior UNIX admin pointed out me to use vmnet-netifup command :D . It is use to configure a virtual networking i.e. VMWARE network interfaces. The syntax is easy:
# vmnet-netifup -d /var/run/vmnet1.pid /dev/vmnet1 vmnet1
Where,

* -d /var/run/vmnet1.pid : PID file for daemon mode
* /dev/vmnet1 : Device file
* vmnet1: Interface name (it can be eth1)

Assign an IP address:

# ifconfig vmnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx up

It worked like a charm. It saved me from restoring OS updates as well as reinstalling VMWARE.

//Lin U x U niL